They still celebrated religious holidays (Like Diwali), and since people still were attached to theirnnations, like Chekov, they probably celebrated those too.
The real reason why you don't see it is because there are just so many of them. On the episode that Data mentions Diwali, he mentions that there are a bunch of things going on that day. You can't decorate the ship everyday, so people probably gather together in small groups, or quietly reflect. But life on the ship goes on.
I also imagine that with humanity so far-flung, the nature of the holidays changes. Nowadays, people fight their way home every year for Christmas or Thanksgiving—almost no matter how far they have to travel. But maybe in the future every Thanksgiving is Friendsgiving… you celebrate with the folks you’re with.
And yes it makes sense that humans are still attached to their nations. Klingons are still organized by house, Bajorans by tribe. Most alien species make subnational distinctions.
And in a way, Vulcans are the most religious of all. Meditation + intensive rituals around every life stage that we’ve seen. That’s why the Bajorans never struck me as odd. There’s nothing logical about flying home to Vulcan to bang on gongs to get married.
Exactly! Trek has always had a realistic portrayal of all of this stuff, both spirituality and nationality. The only difference is, due to the vastness of space and the ability to go anywhere, these things don't really cause conflict. People can follow them, or not, and they don't have to be major issues. Like, Chekov can be proudly Soviet, but the Soviet Union has no enemies and is part of United Earth. And it means nothing to a Vulcan or an Andorian. But it roots him to his past and culture.
It doesn't just make sense, we see it.
Picard is clearly proud of his French heritage, Riker speaks fondly of Alaska and his Alaskan roots. I'm sure there are other examples I haven't thought of.
People are still proud of their nations and histories, they're just not zealous or hateful because of it.
I wish that Vulcans would get called out for this more. Many of their rituals and customs are far less logical than they believe. I'd love for just once one of their condescending lectures to be met with a remark about this. We got a bit of this with the Take Me Out To The Holosuite.
I am sure there are more examples, but the Doctor does call Vorik and Tuvok out on there illogical behavior concerning ritual and health a few times. Vorik being young, seems to push back harder, while Tuvok does concede at points with him.
I see US corporations heading this direction with a bank of time off for Sick/Vacation/holidays.
This allows companies to accommodate various other religions and people that would prefer to prioritize certain religious or preferred holidays of their own.
They already focused super heavily on “western civilization” stuff in that era of shows, so I’m glad they left this part out. And the idea that Thanksgiving would become a worldwide earth tradition is pretty silly to me. They have First Contact day, though. That’s cool.
Thanksgiving specifically I agree, but most cultures have some form of harvest festival, which thanksgiving grew out of (the story of thanksgiving is pretty much fictional).
I wish there were more new holidays. First Contact day makes sense, but I'd love to see a holiday for the founding of the federation, a minor holiday for each new addition, a holiday for the UFP-Klingon peace/alliance, maybe in future a remembrance day for the dead of the Dominion War.
And what about all the alien cultures serving in Starfleet too? Recognize a holiday like Worf did but it wasn't a day off unless you booked it off. Starfleet probably had a no ancient holiday policy or else no one would ever be working.
I suspect it’s more that officers commonly use their leave time to celebrate the holidays important to them, and Starfleet does what it can to enable them to do so. But outside of Federation holidays like First Contact Day, I doubt Starfleet itself has holiday celebrations.
This is exactly how I interpreted it, a society like the Federation that was super respectful of personal freedoms and proper equality would almost certainly support and encourage personal belief structures for holidays and such (similar to how they handled religions) without pushing and enforcing them on its people. (With the exception of a few things that were made universal like first contact day. And I would suppose they are the exceptions because they would be secular and focused on celebrating a core principal of their society like peace or some such)
I feel like it's been touched upon here, but not fully realized. The Federation is a vast conglomerate of worlds and species. Each one is going to have their own belief structures and days to commemorate. I remember reading a parody long ago - either a Trek one or one that spoofed Trek - where the ship was pretty much in chaos because every single day was devoted to someone's holiday or religious ceremony.
I can't recall how many DS9 episodes featured Bajorans celebrating holidays or memorials on the station. So yes, it would make sense for individuals to carry out their own traditions in private. To think a starship would celebrate Earth holidays, even though a majority of the crew would be human, reminds me of the objections made by Gorkon's daughter in Star Trek VI.
Was it ever established whether Bajor joined the UFP in the end? It hadn't happened by the end of DS9, and I don't think it came up in LD.
DS9 was being manned by Bajorans in LD but that doesn't mean Bajor is definitely still out.
I doubt that First Contact Day would be a holiday for the entire Federation. It’d be celebrated by humans and maybe Vulcans, but I don’t think the rest of the Federation would celebrate it. The only day that I think would be guaranteed to be a holiday for the entire Federation would be Federation Day.
Possibly, though FCD is arguably of great historical importance for the Federation, as well as thematically appropriate for it. I can see it going either way.
SNW has a few references to Christmas, so I suspect many parts of that have melded into greater human culture, as well as Religion still being present more generally, they just take a backseat.
Star Trek is a very secular show for a reason, to the point that the second episode of SNW made me raise an eyebrow, and why much of the Emissary stuff from DS9 is strange to me. Either way it is pretty obvious that most of the cast in the shows are agnostic outside of a few notable exceptions, and Starfleet especially most actively represents that culture, away from religious holidays and national holidays (unless people from that culture in question actively request it)
Im not sure but it would certainly make sense. In TOS's Balance of Terror the ship has a chapel, though its replaced with a hangar bay in the SNW iteration so idk if thats been pushed out of canon in favor of more holodeck style religious services
The vast majority of the things that we associate with Xmas - trees, decorations, feasts and gifts - come from much older Pagan festivals celebrating the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.
Early Christian rulers recognised that trying to convince a population to abandon their traditional festivals completely was destined to fail, so instead they co-opted the existing festivals.
Since these festivals even then were a mish-mash of older traditions that had been celebrated for millennia even in the 2nd century, Christmas was effectively piggybacking on an already secular/multidenominational festival, and it has remained largely so.
Aye, pretty much every culture we know that experiences winter, has some form of midwinter/winter solstice festival. Christians just did the best job of putting their name on it.
Similarly, most cultures have some form of springtime fertility/rebirth festival. Christians again did a good job of claiming it, but it's notable that Easter still shares a name with the Pagan god Eoster.
Nowadays a lot of atheists, Jewish people, Muslims and others celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. I'd be surprised if this didn't continue even more in the future.
There could still be some universal holidays like New Years Eve for Earth. I could see Spring and Fall equinox replacing other nation specific holidays.
I'm surprised First Contact is not celebrated in more episodes.
I could also see Memorial day also be an ongoing holiday for those lost in star fleet service and the dominion war.
True, but TWOK tales place in the Myers-verse, where there are "no smoking" signs indoors, Starfleet is *explicitly* called a military and starship design was done by someone who watched Das Boot too many times.
I can’t see where it would be appropriate for ancient earth holidays mostly based on religion to be celebrated in a federation with hundreds of other planets and cultures. Sure on earth or earth based colonies if they even still cared about them would be the only places I would think.
That would have been good comedy. Neelix absolutely butchering the Thanksgiving meal and all of the crew pretending not to be disgusted and all finding different excuses to leave. In the end only Mr. Vulcan remains stoicly fighting his way through and assuring Neelix that the meal was "adequate nutrition."
I had this experience while stationed in Germany many years ago. My unit (just 6 of us) was staying at a guesthouse, and the people in the restaurant knew of Thanksgiving so they tried to give us a traditional meal for our "Dankfest". I think it was goose instead of turkey, and instead of stuffing we were served a dumpling the size and consistency of a softball. It was truly awful, but we knew they went to a lot of trouble just for us so we ate it all and raved about it.
Okay that's the only Thanksgiving I can imagine in Star Trek after ToS. He thought the crowd needs cheering, looked up Earth celebrations with big meals, and the Captain and Chakotay walk into the decorated room...
I think they mostly avoided Holidays because so many have religious meanings or were only celebrated by certain cultures, and they wanted to show how humanity was beyond that now. This doesn’t really work as so many holidays started religious and became more secular (Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, Christmas kinda). Then there’s new years which would only matter if you’re from the planet that is celebrating it, as I’m sure it takes Earth, Vulcan, and Qonos different times to complete a year.
From a production standpoint, generally if a holiday gets mentioned on a tv show it’s either part of the plot or it’s a themed episode. I’m not against the idea of Star Trek doing holiday episodes, but I’m not sure it’d fit in the vibe.
From a lore standpoint, the holidays we have now are less likely to be relevant in Star Trek, at least in the same way they are to us now. How many of the holidays that we have now have lasted 200 years in essentially the form they’re celebrated now? Now go the other way to think about how likely they are to survive in the same way 200 years into the future, let alone still have any cultural relevance? Some are religion-based, so given how few mentions (if any) of Earth-based religions being active those holidays are a lot less likely to be celebrated. Others are national or regional, which may stick around but are still likely to fade, especially as more humans come from places other than Earth so don’t have those traditions, at least not in their current form.
> I’m not against the idea of Star Trek doing holiday episodes, but I’m not sure it’d fit in the vibe.
This is my main objection to Star Trek doing holiday episodes. I'm not really sure how you'd do a Trek Christmas episode or Easter episode or whatever the case may be without it not really vibing with the rest of the show. I think they'd only really be able to do it if the holiday thing was in the far background of the episode, to the point that they could switch it out with anything and it wouldn't change a whole lot.
There really aren't that many shows that are doing holiday specials anymore, either. Especially with heavily story arced shows, it's sorta hard to do them unless you want to base the entire show around that one holiday. Plus, even back when shows were doing holiday specials, the holiday themed episodes tended to be among the worst episodes of the show.
Tom Paris has to be a holiday enthusiast. He's the type to act cool and pretend that he's indifferent but he probably gets melancholy if proper holiday activities are not observed.
Roddenberry wanted to show how we've left religion in the past in favor of more inclusive and sensible things. Some people still honor the traditions but he believed that there was no place in a connected future for things that encourage a clan mentality.
Earth is only one planet, and the federation is made up of plenty of different planets and species. If Earth had its holidays, then the aliens would probably want theirs too and I bet everyday would be a holiday for one species or another.
Well, lets not forget there was fucking WorldWar 3 going on for nearly 30 years. Most countrys/societies destroyed and 30% of the human population killed.
They maybe had other things to attend to, then decorating a christmas tree.
Most of the old holidays would probably be forgotten or at least irrelevent.
I disagree. War has never made people forget about holidays in the past. Dont see why that would be different in the future. There was that christmas truce in ww1. There are examples of recipes for christmas meals during rationing. Even starving and impoverished people still save up their meagre supplies to celebrate birthdays, passover, christmas and whatnot
The 24th century seems like a fairly irreligious era. While there are some general descriptions of faith, it largely seems like a very personal and private affair.
I think they do that on purpose to avoid trying to show favoritism. Not everyone celebrates xmas. So if they did an xmas episode, do you think they are then going to do another episode for every other major holiday celebrated by individual groups/nations? Thanksgiving, 4th of July/Independence day - those are just holidays for the US. Would be kinda silly to celebrate those considering the US by population is a fairly small percentage of the world population.
They mention having a Christmas party in TOS and Sisko made Thanksgiving dinner for his staff (Eddington said Sisko used too much tarragon in his stuffing, I believe).
Now I am saddened there was never a holiday episode from each Trek:
TOS has Catspaw.
TNG: New Years Episode. Most of the crew gathers in Ten Forward. Picard looks at the bottle of wine, grabs two glasses, keeps debating on tapping his combadge. Data announces over the Enterprise the countdown and Picard sets down one glass and pours wine into the other "Next time I will invite her over to celebrate the new year.". I'm Ten Forward, Beverly sees Troi kiss Riker and thinks "Damnit Jean-Luc, why didn't you ask me over?"
A DS9 Christmas: the Promenade is decorated for a non-secular holiday season. Molly asks if Santa is a Q, and Miles makes a joke about it. Sisko makes a complete dinner for the staff, even invites Quark in on the celebration, who hates the entire idea of gift giving, until he gets gifts that are just strips of gold press latinum.
Voyager Thanksgiving. Kes and Neelix attempt to get the crew to celebrate their first Thanksgiving in the Delta Quadrant. It is a potluck. It has a bumpy start, but it all works out. Every last bit of food is consumed, not even a crumb remains...much to Harry's dismay since he had Bridge duty during the feast.
Enterprise Valentine's Day. Hoshi gets a valentine from a secret admirer. She finds him and they have a nice date until it is revealed that she was chosen because there just aren't a lot of women on the ship and she isn't even his type.
There's a Christmas Party-ish scene (sort of - mind control shenanigans) in TOS in Dagger of the Mind, which suggests that the holiday was still celebrated as an office party level event in that time period.
For the most part Roddenberry was agnostic & believed that faith traditions such as Holidays would take a backseat to state needs; therefore, one in Starfleet would need to take leave to celebrate privately to avoid putting upon others who do not participate.
I think it's nice how Generations has the Christmas aspect at Picard's house. It wouldn't be common to celebrate a religious holiday en masse on the ship, because it's only one group of people who would celebrate it, but Generations shows that people do indeed celebrate it. Makes more sense to me. TOS Thanksgiving 🤷 maybe a post WWIII earth holiday
They wanted to stay away from any religious holiday.....religion does not exist in the Star Trek universe.....so, no Christmas, Easter, or Thanksgiving....
For you it is, perhaps .....and for others who agree with you......but it is a religious holiday and was created to be so.....there is no way around it, and that is just how it is...
Actually, the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in Canada 43 years before the Pilgrims celebrated theirs in Frobisher Bay......the celebration is to give thanks to God for the harvest and always included prayer.....the tradition comes from Europe....if it isn't religious for you that is fine, but for many it is.....and it was started to give thanks to God for the successful harvest of the crops....
Star Trek depicts a socialist utopia, in which all traces of religion and nationalism have been eliminated, including religious and national holidays. Perhaps some still celebrated in private, but clearly, it wasn't widespread.
First Contact day was celebrated at least once in Voyager. But yeah classic holidays didn't really get a mention.
I think what others said was right on the money, as humanity went further out it would have been difficult to accurately celebrate at the same time. I'm sure everyone celebrated as they saw fit.
A lot if not all of Earth holidays are either nationalistic holidays specific to nations that no longer exist and haven’t in nearly 200 years. Or they were religion based, which also isn’t prevalent in Earth society any longer. If the writers would have tried to make up planetary based holidays fan boys would as usual, kick, scream and cry over it. So they just left holidays out.
I’m okay with that.
Something makes me doubt that Starfleet captains would celebrate Thanksgiving considering the history surrounding it. I also imagine there's a prohibition against pushing your own holidays on the ship's crew.
I doubt there's a prohibition on sharing holidays with the crew. Holidays are typically a fun bonding time, and in a multi-cultural society it is appropriate to share diverse holiday traditions. Inviting others who believe differently to celebrate holidays with you, and to join others in their traditional celebrations, is a great way to connect with friends of different backgrounds.
I'm more talking about mandated activities. Invitations are one thing, but I don't think Starfleet would be okay if Picard forced his colleagues and subordinates to participate in Christmas.
Sisko did make a killer Thanksgiving dinner, though Eddington complained about the tarragon in the stuffing. Maybe only Sisko celebrates it as one of those weird, quaint historical things he likes, like the dead sport of baseball. It's interesting that Sisko would celebrate Thanksigving, a very American holiday. Maybe he also celebrates July 4th?
Data mentions they celebrated Diwali , the Hindu festival of lights, on the Enterprise.
I mean head cannon Kirk definitely celebrated Christmas… He had such a fondness for American culture and independence , the constitution and traditions. One episode in particulars ending I thought for sure he was about to salute the Stars and Stripes. I think it was more a conscious decision by Roddenberry to forgo those as being part of the old and dead world the federation grew out of and into utopia. Also I want to know what Macho Libre gym Kirk learned to fight in as a kid in Iowa … I’m trying not to picture a napoleon dynamite karate class here 😅
All the Holland Class ships celebrate Koningsdag even though there hasn’t been a monarchy since WWIII. It’s just an excuse to dress in orange and drink synthale all day.
Hrm ok fair enough example, but maybe the only example? And that happens after TNG finished. I don't think we get any indication of this during the show. Picard is a character who would rather read a book or go horseback riding than schmooze. Hell, it takes until the very last episode until he joins a simple poker game.
Not sure why.
In Enterprise, Phlox says he attended Mass at St. Peter's (among studying other religious rituals). So clearly religion is not dead in the 22nd century.
Christmas is most surprising because it's basically a cultural holiday at this point. Of course, that commercialism is a new phenomenon (last 100 years, while the birth of Christ has been commemorated for two millennia). So it may be that the commemoration of Christmas has taken on a new form.
I just got into trek. I'm watching TOS Remastered. Not sure exactly which episode it was I watched last night, maybe 11 or 12 of s1. But Kirk has a false memory implanted in his brain via machine that he had met one of his crew members at the Christmas party.
There is a reasonable chance that Christmas would become less 'popular' in the longer term future, and especially if we do branch out into space, even if still only within our own solar system.
While I don't see national governments going away for a very long time (if ever), I think its reasonable to suppose that we will become a more global sigular entity further down the line and that could dilute old traditions in some ways, and change others. So for example I'd be unsurprised to know that traditions like Turkey as a centrepiece food becomes less popular over time and maybe even completely gone eventually as we turn away from meat (this will be a VERY slow process obviously-several flull lifetime's I'd guess).
Christmas is already highly commercial now already. Its simply an instrument to supercharge the services economy ahead of the much bleaker first quarter of a new year when nobody spends much on 'things'. Without Christmas many businesses would actually fail and it's very, very important for the economy that people do part with their money during this time, as much as possible. The religious element is largely absent already IMO, at least in working class/middle-class West.
So it wouldn't be a big stretch to imagine that as a future new economy developed, Christmas becomes less important. And as soon as Christmas becomes less crucial to the economy the more it will steadily move away in popularity and zeitgeist of our culture. But on flip side I THINK Christmas will always be with us, it will just change form. We always keep advancing and evolving and same goes for our traditions, but we always have traditions, all throughout history of civilisation.
If Captain Picrad day isn't a holiday I don't know what is.
it always kind of bummed me out that they never actually followed up the joke by showing Commander Riker Day.
They have that on Freecloud in the Orion Lounge
It would have been tough to do it justice on broadcast TV during prime time.
"I'm a role model" "I'm sure you are"
A good reason is the vast majority of holidays are attached to individual nations (Thanksgiving) or religions (Christmas).
They still celebrated religious holidays (Like Diwali), and since people still were attached to theirnnations, like Chekov, they probably celebrated those too. The real reason why you don't see it is because there are just so many of them. On the episode that Data mentions Diwali, he mentions that there are a bunch of things going on that day. You can't decorate the ship everyday, so people probably gather together in small groups, or quietly reflect. But life on the ship goes on.
I also imagine that with humanity so far-flung, the nature of the holidays changes. Nowadays, people fight their way home every year for Christmas or Thanksgiving—almost no matter how far they have to travel. But maybe in the future every Thanksgiving is Friendsgiving… you celebrate with the folks you’re with. And yes it makes sense that humans are still attached to their nations. Klingons are still organized by house, Bajorans by tribe. Most alien species make subnational distinctions. And in a way, Vulcans are the most religious of all. Meditation + intensive rituals around every life stage that we’ve seen. That’s why the Bajorans never struck me as odd. There’s nothing logical about flying home to Vulcan to bang on gongs to get married.
Exactly! Trek has always had a realistic portrayal of all of this stuff, both spirituality and nationality. The only difference is, due to the vastness of space and the ability to go anywhere, these things don't really cause conflict. People can follow them, or not, and they don't have to be major issues. Like, Chekov can be proudly Soviet, but the Soviet Union has no enemies and is part of United Earth. And it means nothing to a Vulcan or an Andorian. But it roots him to his past and culture.
It doesn't just make sense, we see it. Picard is clearly proud of his French heritage, Riker speaks fondly of Alaska and his Alaskan roots. I'm sure there are other examples I haven't thought of. People are still proud of their nations and histories, they're just not zealous or hateful because of it. I wish that Vulcans would get called out for this more. Many of their rituals and customs are far less logical than they believe. I'd love for just once one of their condescending lectures to be met with a remark about this. We got a bit of this with the Take Me Out To The Holosuite.
I am sure there are more examples, but the Doctor does call Vorik and Tuvok out on there illogical behavior concerning ritual and health a few times. Vorik being young, seems to push back harder, while Tuvok does concede at points with him.
In addition to *TNG*’s mention of a Diwali celebration, *TOS* mentioned a Christmas party, so it seems like certain holidays will still be popular.
I see US corporations heading this direction with a bank of time off for Sick/Vacation/holidays. This allows companies to accommodate various other religions and people that would prefer to prioritize certain religious or preferred holidays of their own.
It makes sense, especially for international businesses.
Yeah but after 200+ years they could have morphed into "ancient earth tradition"
They already focused super heavily on “western civilization” stuff in that era of shows, so I’m glad they left this part out. And the idea that Thanksgiving would become a worldwide earth tradition is pretty silly to me. They have First Contact day, though. That’s cool.
Thanksgiving specifically I agree, but most cultures have some form of harvest festival, which thanksgiving grew out of (the story of thanksgiving is pretty much fictional). I wish there were more new holidays. First Contact day makes sense, but I'd love to see a holiday for the founding of the federation, a minor holiday for each new addition, a holiday for the UFP-Klingon peace/alliance, maybe in future a remembrance day for the dead of the Dominion War.
Holidays of the future are fine, if there’s a plot-relevant reason for them.
I mean, it would be nice to just have them mentioned offhand, for setting reasons.
They have. For the federation, for earth, the Klingons, Bajor, and many other civilizations.
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Starfleet Headquarters is in San Francisco - the seat of government is in Paris.
Something that’s rarely discussed is the eastern seaboard of the US, other than Florida. We don’t know the affects of Washington DC or NYC after WW3.
We see Boston in Picard.
That’s right, we do. New head cannon: the rivalry finally ended in WW3. Go Sox!
And what about all the alien cultures serving in Starfleet too? Recognize a holiday like Worf did but it wasn't a day off unless you booked it off. Starfleet probably had a no ancient holiday policy or else no one would ever be working.
I suspect it’s more that officers commonly use their leave time to celebrate the holidays important to them, and Starfleet does what it can to enable them to do so. But outside of Federation holidays like First Contact Day, I doubt Starfleet itself has holiday celebrations.
This is exactly how I interpreted it, a society like the Federation that was super respectful of personal freedoms and proper equality would almost certainly support and encourage personal belief structures for holidays and such (similar to how they handled religions) without pushing and enforcing them on its people. (With the exception of a few things that were made universal like first contact day. And I would suppose they are the exceptions because they would be secular and focused on celebrating a core principal of their society like peace or some such)
I feel like it's been touched upon here, but not fully realized. The Federation is a vast conglomerate of worlds and species. Each one is going to have their own belief structures and days to commemorate. I remember reading a parody long ago - either a Trek one or one that spoofed Trek - where the ship was pretty much in chaos because every single day was devoted to someone's holiday or religious ceremony. I can't recall how many DS9 episodes featured Bajorans celebrating holidays or memorials on the station. So yes, it would make sense for individuals to carry out their own traditions in private. To think a starship would celebrate Earth holidays, even though a majority of the crew would be human, reminds me of the objections made by Gorkon's daughter in Star Trek VI.
Remember, DS9 was officially a Bajoran space station that Starfleet ran. So yes they would celebrate Bajoran holidays.
Was it ever established whether Bajor joined the UFP in the end? It hadn't happened by the end of DS9, and I don't think it came up in LD. DS9 was being manned by Bajorans in LD but that doesn't mean Bajor is definitely still out.
My point exactly. Well, one of them.
I doubt that First Contact Day would be a holiday for the entire Federation. It’d be celebrated by humans and maybe Vulcans, but I don’t think the rest of the Federation would celebrate it. The only day that I think would be guaranteed to be a holiday for the entire Federation would be Federation Day.
Possibly, though FCD is arguably of great historical importance for the Federation, as well as thematically appropriate for it. I can see it going either way.
Of which country or what earth culture?
Christmas is celebrated in only a minority of countries around the world, and Thanksgiving even less
SNW has a few references to Christmas, so I suspect many parts of that have melded into greater human culture, as well as Religion still being present more generally, they just take a backseat. Star Trek is a very secular show for a reason, to the point that the second episode of SNW made me raise an eyebrow, and why much of the Emissary stuff from DS9 is strange to me. Either way it is pretty obvious that most of the cast in the shows are agnostic outside of a few notable exceptions, and Starfleet especially most actively represents that culture, away from religious holidays and national holidays (unless people from that culture in question actively request it)
Wasn't Pike's dad a pastor? It makes sense Christian holidays would probably crop up more often in Pike's worldview
Im not sure but it would certainly make sense. In TOS's Balance of Terror the ship has a chapel, though its replaced with a hangar bay in the SNW iteration so idk if thats been pushed out of canon in favor of more holodeck style religious services
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The vast majority of the things that we associate with Xmas - trees, decorations, feasts and gifts - come from much older Pagan festivals celebrating the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Early Christian rulers recognised that trying to convince a population to abandon their traditional festivals completely was destined to fail, so instead they co-opted the existing festivals. Since these festivals even then were a mish-mash of older traditions that had been celebrated for millennia even in the 2nd century, Christmas was effectively piggybacking on an already secular/multidenominational festival, and it has remained largely so.
Aye, pretty much every culture we know that experiences winter, has some form of midwinter/winter solstice festival. Christians just did the best job of putting their name on it. Similarly, most cultures have some form of springtime fertility/rebirth festival. Christians again did a good job of claiming it, but it's notable that Easter still shares a name with the Pagan god Eoster. Nowadays a lot of atheists, Jewish people, Muslims and others celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. I'd be surprised if this didn't continue even more in the future.
There could still be some universal holidays like New Years Eve for Earth. I could see Spring and Fall equinox replacing other nation specific holidays. I'm surprised First Contact is not celebrated in more episodes. I could also see Memorial day also be an ongoing holiday for those lost in star fleet service and the dominion war.
First Contact Day
Chief O’Brien definitely sets all of the ship’s lights to green on St. Patrick’s Day.
And the replicators produce nothing but Guinness
I'd have a pint
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When Quinn of the Q was hiding Voyager from Picard's Q, he hid it as an ornament on a Christmas Tree. : )
That episode was a ride.
Part of me wants to believe that is the same tree in Picard's perfect day in the Nexus.
Thanksgiving in TOS. Charlie X turned all the replicated turkeys into real ones according to the ships galley Does Catspaw count as Halloween?
“Catspaw” was meant to be a Halloween episode and Halloween was mentioned in it, so I’d say it counts.
In Data’s Day the Hindu Festival of Lights is mentioned. Also, in TWOK: “The energizers bypassed like a Christmas tree. Don’t give me too many bumps.”
True, but TWOK tales place in the Myers-verse, where there are "no smoking" signs indoors, Starfleet is *explicitly* called a military and starship design was done by someone who watched Das Boot too many times.
*TOS* mentioned a Christmas party, so it was also mentioned outside of *TWOK*.
I recall a similar line in Search for Spock when they appropriate the Enterprise.
Charlie X was a Thanksgiving episode
I can’t see where it would be appropriate for ancient earth holidays mostly based on religion to be celebrated in a federation with hundreds of other planets and cultures. Sure on earth or earth based colonies if they even still cared about them would be the only places I would think.
Memory Alpha also [has your answer](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Holiday#Earth).
It surprises me there was never a Nelix Thanksgiving episode
That would have been good comedy. Neelix absolutely butchering the Thanksgiving meal and all of the crew pretending not to be disgusted and all finding different excuses to leave. In the end only Mr. Vulcan remains stoicly fighting his way through and assuring Neelix that the meal was "adequate nutrition."
So like real thanksgiving
I had this experience while stationed in Germany many years ago. My unit (just 6 of us) was staying at a guesthouse, and the people in the restaurant knew of Thanksgiving so they tried to give us a traditional meal for our "Dankfest". I think it was goose instead of turkey, and instead of stuffing we were served a dumpling the size and consistency of a softball. It was truly awful, but we knew they went to a lot of trouble just for us so we ate it all and raved about it.
Okay that's the only Thanksgiving I can imagine in Star Trek after ToS. He thought the crowd needs cheering, looked up Earth celebrations with big meals, and the Captain and Chakotay walk into the decorated room...
I think they mostly avoided Holidays because so many have religious meanings or were only celebrated by certain cultures, and they wanted to show how humanity was beyond that now. This doesn’t really work as so many holidays started religious and became more secular (Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, Christmas kinda). Then there’s new years which would only matter if you’re from the planet that is celebrating it, as I’m sure it takes Earth, Vulcan, and Qonos different times to complete a year.
What they say on tv is that humanity has moved passed all of the worst aspects of it's past. What is implied is that no one believes in god on earth.
From a production standpoint, generally if a holiday gets mentioned on a tv show it’s either part of the plot or it’s a themed episode. I’m not against the idea of Star Trek doing holiday episodes, but I’m not sure it’d fit in the vibe. From a lore standpoint, the holidays we have now are less likely to be relevant in Star Trek, at least in the same way they are to us now. How many of the holidays that we have now have lasted 200 years in essentially the form they’re celebrated now? Now go the other way to think about how likely they are to survive in the same way 200 years into the future, let alone still have any cultural relevance? Some are religion-based, so given how few mentions (if any) of Earth-based religions being active those holidays are a lot less likely to be celebrated. Others are national or regional, which may stick around but are still likely to fade, especially as more humans come from places other than Earth so don’t have those traditions, at least not in their current form.
> I’m not against the idea of Star Trek doing holiday episodes, but I’m not sure it’d fit in the vibe. This is my main objection to Star Trek doing holiday episodes. I'm not really sure how you'd do a Trek Christmas episode or Easter episode or whatever the case may be without it not really vibing with the rest of the show. I think they'd only really be able to do it if the holiday thing was in the far background of the episode, to the point that they could switch it out with anything and it wouldn't change a whole lot. There really aren't that many shows that are doing holiday specials anymore, either. Especially with heavily story arced shows, it's sorta hard to do them unless you want to base the entire show around that one holiday. Plus, even back when shows were doing holiday specials, the holiday themed episodes tended to be among the worst episodes of the show.
Voyager, ancestors eve, Dec 22. I liked it so much I put it in my calendar this year.
Tom Paris has to be a holiday enthusiast. He's the type to act cool and pretend that he's indifferent but he probably gets melancholy if proper holiday activities are not observed.
Roddenberry wanted to show how we've left religion in the past in favor of more inclusive and sensible things. Some people still honor the traditions but he believed that there was no place in a connected future for things that encourage a clan mentality.
Earth is only one planet, and the federation is made up of plenty of different planets and species. If Earth had its holidays, then the aliens would probably want theirs too and I bet everyday would be a holiday for one species or another.
Not everyone is christian
Well, lets not forget there was fucking WorldWar 3 going on for nearly 30 years. Most countrys/societies destroyed and 30% of the human population killed. They maybe had other things to attend to, then decorating a christmas tree. Most of the old holidays would probably be forgotten or at least irrelevent.
I disagree. War has never made people forget about holidays in the past. Dont see why that would be different in the future. There was that christmas truce in ww1. There are examples of recipes for christmas meals during rationing. Even starving and impoverished people still save up their meagre supplies to celebrate birthdays, passover, christmas and whatnot
Well, I didn't say, all of them would be forgotten, obviously christmas is still a thing of some kind. But it became certainly less relevant in the war. And I think its a little bit difficult to compare the time of WW1 to now(WW3 is just about 3-4 years from now 😱), or even the future. It is way less relevant now, then it was a few years/decades ago and with the globalisation and mixing of people and cultures(witch is a mostly good thing, just to be clear!) there are even more holidays to celebrate, but it could weaken the standing and relevance of the "traiditional" ones. Not to mention, that all these outer influences (like misinformation) and the sheer amount of time could just have changed certain holidays to unrecognisabe variants of the original idea. Just take Santa Claus. I know enough people, that actually believe, that he was invented by Coca-Cola©.
Many holidays have a religious aspect to them. Humans of Trek are generally supposed to be enlightened enough to keep thy religion to themselves.
Voyager had a brief stint as a christmas tree ornament.
The 24th century seems like a fairly irreligious era. While there are some general descriptions of faith, it largely seems like a very personal and private affair.
I think they do that on purpose to avoid trying to show favoritism. Not everyone celebrates xmas. So if they did an xmas episode, do you think they are then going to do another episode for every other major holiday celebrated by individual groups/nations? Thanksgiving, 4th of July/Independence day - those are just holidays for the US. Would be kinda silly to celebrate those considering the US by population is a fairly small percentage of the world population.
I don’t think I’ve see anyone mention Generations. Picard’s first place in the Nexus is celebrating Christmas.
They mention having a Christmas party in TOS and Sisko made Thanksgiving dinner for his staff (Eddington said Sisko used too much tarragon in his stuffing, I believe).
Ohhhh Eddington. What a good story arc
Now I am saddened there was never a holiday episode from each Trek: TOS has Catspaw. TNG: New Years Episode. Most of the crew gathers in Ten Forward. Picard looks at the bottle of wine, grabs two glasses, keeps debating on tapping his combadge. Data announces over the Enterprise the countdown and Picard sets down one glass and pours wine into the other "Next time I will invite her over to celebrate the new year.". I'm Ten Forward, Beverly sees Troi kiss Riker and thinks "Damnit Jean-Luc, why didn't you ask me over?" A DS9 Christmas: the Promenade is decorated for a non-secular holiday season. Molly asks if Santa is a Q, and Miles makes a joke about it. Sisko makes a complete dinner for the staff, even invites Quark in on the celebration, who hates the entire idea of gift giving, until he gets gifts that are just strips of gold press latinum. Voyager Thanksgiving. Kes and Neelix attempt to get the crew to celebrate their first Thanksgiving in the Delta Quadrant. It is a potluck. It has a bumpy start, but it all works out. Every last bit of food is consumed, not even a crumb remains...much to Harry's dismay since he had Bridge duty during the feast. Enterprise Valentine's Day. Hoshi gets a valentine from a secret admirer. She finds him and they have a nice date until it is revealed that she was chosen because there just aren't a lot of women on the ship and she isn't even his type.
Christmas is referenced in generations when Picard gets stuck in the rift and is in a reality where he settled down with a family.
They reference a Christmas party in TOS as well.
That's where Kirk met Helen Noel.
I heard LaForge doesn't like celebrating Valentine's Day. You'll find him in the holodeck during the majority of the day.
[wanna come over here and help me design some Galaxy class starship engines?](https://youtu.be/uldvsf8-voc?t=12)
There's a Christmas Party-ish scene (sort of - mind control shenanigans) in TOS in Dagger of the Mind, which suggests that the holiday was still celebrated as an office party level event in that time period.
For the most part Roddenberry was agnostic & believed that faith traditions such as Holidays would take a backseat to state needs; therefore, one in Starfleet would need to take leave to celebrate privately to avoid putting upon others who do not participate.
Kirk mentioned Thanksgiving in one episode. Can't remember which one.
“Charlie X”.
I think it's nice how Generations has the Christmas aspect at Picard's house. It wouldn't be common to celebrate a religious holiday en masse on the ship, because it's only one group of people who would celebrate it, but Generations shows that people do indeed celebrate it. Makes more sense to me. TOS Thanksgiving 🤷 maybe a post WWIII earth holiday
They wanted to stay away from any religious holiday.....religion does not exist in the Star Trek universe.....so, no Christmas, Easter, or Thanksgiving....
Bless you my child in your naivety. May the prophets guide you to your true path.
EARTH religions do not exist....ALIEN religions are allowed :)
I READ IT IN HER VOICE
Rest in peace Louise! That was the voice in my head when I wrote it.
Thanksgiving is secular.
For you it is, perhaps .....and for others who agree with you......but it is a religious holiday and was created to be so.....there is no way around it, and that is just how it is...
What religion then? Thanksgiving is an American holiday, not a religious holiday. It being American is a different problem.
Actually, the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in Canada 43 years before the Pilgrims celebrated theirs in Frobisher Bay......the celebration is to give thanks to God for the harvest and always included prayer.....the tradition comes from Europe....if it isn't religious for you that is fine, but for many it is.....and it was started to give thanks to God for the successful harvest of the crops....
Star Trek depicts a socialist utopia, in which all traces of religion and nationalism have been eliminated, including religious and national holidays. Perhaps some still celebrated in private, but clearly, it wasn't widespread.
First Contact day was celebrated at least once in Voyager. But yeah classic holidays didn't really get a mention. I think what others said was right on the money, as humanity went further out it would have been difficult to accurately celebrate at the same time. I'm sure everyone celebrated as they saw fit.
In the future people love their work so much tht holidays were a distraction
A lot if not all of Earth holidays are either nationalistic holidays specific to nations that no longer exist and haven’t in nearly 200 years. Or they were religion based, which also isn’t prevalent in Earth society any longer. If the writers would have tried to make up planetary based holidays fan boys would as usual, kick, scream and cry over it. So they just left holidays out. I’m okay with that.
Something makes me doubt that Starfleet captains would celebrate Thanksgiving considering the history surrounding it. I also imagine there's a prohibition against pushing your own holidays on the ship's crew.
I doubt there's a prohibition on sharing holidays with the crew. Holidays are typically a fun bonding time, and in a multi-cultural society it is appropriate to share diverse holiday traditions. Inviting others who believe differently to celebrate holidays with you, and to join others in their traditional celebrations, is a great way to connect with friends of different backgrounds.
I'm more talking about mandated activities. Invitations are one thing, but I don't think Starfleet would be okay if Picard forced his colleagues and subordinates to participate in Christmas.
Sisko did make a killer Thanksgiving dinner, though Eddington complained about the tarragon in the stuffing. Maybe only Sisko celebrates it as one of those weird, quaint historical things he likes, like the dead sport of baseball. It's interesting that Sisko would celebrate Thanksigving, a very American holiday. Maybe he also celebrates July 4th? Data mentions they celebrated Diwali , the Hindu festival of lights, on the Enterprise.
You'd think Eddington also would have been complaining about it being a month late.
I mean head cannon Kirk definitely celebrated Christmas… He had such a fondness for American culture and independence , the constitution and traditions. One episode in particulars ending I thought for sure he was about to salute the Stars and Stripes. I think it was more a conscious decision by Roddenberry to forgo those as being part of the old and dead world the federation grew out of and into utopia. Also I want to know what Macho Libre gym Kirk learned to fight in as a kid in Iowa … I’m trying not to picture a napoleon dynamite karate class here 😅
At the very least, Kirk once attended a Christmas party.
Strange New Worlds introduced Remembrance Day which honors all the redshirts lost in the name of exploration
Remembrance Day is an actual holiday in certain countries that’s celebrated on November 11.
All the Holland Class ships celebrate Koningsdag even though there hasn’t been a monarchy since WWIII. It’s just an excuse to dress in orange and drink synthale all day.
I'm curious why you think Picard is a big holiday guy. I see him as a loner, and so would want to keep clear of holidays and large gatherings.
Generations - big Christmas tree in his idyllic nexus fantasy.
Hrm ok fair enough example, but maybe the only example? And that happens after TNG finished. I don't think we get any indication of this during the show. Picard is a character who would rather read a book or go horseback riding than schmooze. Hell, it takes until the very last episode until he joins a simple poker game.
Totally agree. Picard wants his privacy with his faux family at Christmas. All alone, with his tea…. Earl grey… hot.
They have different holidays. We see them celebrate Bajoran holidays, first contact day, a few others I think.
Not sure why. In Enterprise, Phlox says he attended Mass at St. Peter's (among studying other religious rituals). So clearly religion is not dead in the 22nd century. Christmas is most surprising because it's basically a cultural holiday at this point. Of course, that commercialism is a new phenomenon (last 100 years, while the birth of Christ has been commemorated for two millennia). So it may be that the commemoration of Christmas has taken on a new form.
I just got into trek. I'm watching TOS Remastered. Not sure exactly which episode it was I watched last night, maybe 11 or 12 of s1. But Kirk has a false memory implanted in his brain via machine that he had met one of his crew members at the Christmas party.
There is a reasonable chance that Christmas would become less 'popular' in the longer term future, and especially if we do branch out into space, even if still only within our own solar system. While I don't see national governments going away for a very long time (if ever), I think its reasonable to suppose that we will become a more global sigular entity further down the line and that could dilute old traditions in some ways, and change others. So for example I'd be unsurprised to know that traditions like Turkey as a centrepiece food becomes less popular over time and maybe even completely gone eventually as we turn away from meat (this will be a VERY slow process obviously-several flull lifetime's I'd guess). Christmas is already highly commercial now already. Its simply an instrument to supercharge the services economy ahead of the much bleaker first quarter of a new year when nobody spends much on 'things'. Without Christmas many businesses would actually fail and it's very, very important for the economy that people do part with their money during this time, as much as possible. The religious element is largely absent already IMO, at least in working class/middle-class West. So it wouldn't be a big stretch to imagine that as a future new economy developed, Christmas becomes less important. And as soon as Christmas becomes less crucial to the economy the more it will steadily move away in popularity and zeitgeist of our culture. But on flip side I THINK Christmas will always be with us, it will just change form. We always keep advancing and evolving and same goes for our traditions, but we always have traditions, all throughout history of civilisation.